


hands to myself

by peppersnot



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Kissing Games, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-12-27
Packaged: 2019-08-06 23:12:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16396904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peppersnot/pseuds/peppersnot
Summary: “you can’t even spend a day without kissing me, let alone sex.”“then, let’s bet on it.”shizuo and izaya make a bet. shizuo issurehe'll win.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this is some self indulgent nonsense i've been thinking of for almost a few months now, please bear with me.

“Shizu-chan,” Izaya says, standing in front of the floor length mirror he’d had installed right opposite the bed for what Shizuo now knows are less than pure reasons. He’s naked save for his boxers and twisting around to pinch at the purple bruises on the back of his neck, giving Shizuo a dirty look in the mirror as if he’s done something wrong, as if Shizuo’s back isn’t decorated with scratch marks from the nails Izaya’s just been to lazy to trim lately. “Shizu-chan, ever since we started sleeping together, I’ve been covered in marks.”

“Mm,” Shizuo grunts from his spot on the bed where he is sitting in equal amounts of undress and more, his boxers lying on the floor somewhere with the rest of his clothes, and the blanket Izaya had tossed at him while getting up doing barely anything to cover him up.

He doesn’t care, really. It’s nothing Izaya hasn’t seen before. Given their track record, putting on clothes and pretending they’re not both going to end up back in bed is a waste of time, and Shizuo is too lazy and sluggish post-coitus to bother with unnecessary formalities. It isn’t even a formality at this point. It’s just _Izaya._

“I should have known I was going to end up like this,” Izaya is saying, prattling on about how Shizuo runs on instinct alone and he should have expected him to be such an animal in bed that he can’t keep his teeth under control – Shizuo snorts at the implication Izaya’s probably missed with his comment and tunes him out. It’s nothing new; Izaya goes off on ridiculous rants that contradict his own feelings too many times for Shizuo to count even if he wanted to do something as pointless as that.

They’ve been dating for a while now – not officially, and Izaya wouldn’t call it dating if anyone asked, but Izaya is a liar, so who cares – Shizuo’s past the stage where everything Izaya says riles him up. He’s settled for ignoring instead, and sometimes it occurs to him that if he’d learnt how to do this before, when Izaya practically made it his life’s purpose to infuriate him on a daily basis, life would have been a lot simpler.

He huffs amusement to himself, taking a long drag on his cigarette – even though Izaya has told him  _multiple times_  that he’s not allowed to smoke inside the bedroom, but he can’t be bothered to get out of bed right now. And anyway, it’ll annoy Izaya, and that’s a bonus.

“Shizu-chan, are you even listening?”

Shizuo blinks, looking at Izaya standing at the edge of the bed, having left his inspection at the mirror at some point, but Shizuo wasn’t paying attention to know when; he’s crossing his arms over his chest, giving Shizuo a pointed look.

“No,” Shizuo tells him. “What?”

“You were  _ignoring_  me?”

“Yeah. What?”

Izaya shakes his head, putting on an expression of false hurt, and Shizuo is already hearing him before he speaks: “I’m offended, Shizu-chan, how could you just ignore me like that? After all those claims of loving me endlessly and devoting your life to me – “

“I never fucking did anything like that."

"Well, Shizu-chan," Izaya says, cutting him off. "You're too much for my small, skinny, fragile body to handle.”

Shizuo snorts, rolling his eyes and taking a drag of his cigarette. “You? Fragile? Yeah, right.”

Izaya ignores him. “So anyway, you can’t have sex with me for a month.”

Shizuo is looking at the ceiling, watching the fan move in slow motion because Izaya is a weakass who feels cold enough to wear socks starting _fall_ , and his mind is so preoccupied with watching each blade swivel round on its pivot that it takes him a few seconds to register what Izaya is saying.

“What the fuck?”

Izaya smiles viciously, and Shizuo can see the challenge glinting in his eyes, and his brain is already telling him that he’s falling into a trap and he should stay cool, but his body has never been very fond of listening to his brain wherever Izaya is concerned. He growls out his name instead, standing up, uncaring of the fact that without the blanket he is fully in the nude. “What the _fuck_?” He repeats.

Izaya reaches up to pat him on the shoulder. “I mean, I _would_ have just asked you nicely,” the pitch of his voice rises as he plays out a scenario that he’s planned in mind, “ _Shizu-chan, I’m tired, can we not have sex today?_ And you would say,” and then his voice drops low in a supposed imitation of what Shizuo apparently sounds like, “ _Fuck off, Izaya, I’m going to fuck you so hard you forget your name_ – and that’s obviously not helping me any, so I’m not going to ask, Shizu-chan, I’m _telling_ you, that we are not having sex for a month. My ass needs recovery time.”

“That’s not what I sound like, you stupid flea, and I wouldn’t say that anyway.”

“Ah, yes,” Izaya says, “That’s why I’m covered in new bruises every day, and it hurts to walk.”

Shizuo frowns. “You can run pretty fucking fine, and you never said you don’t want to have sex. You want it just as much as I do. You probably want it _more_ , that’s why you’re always pissing me off.”

“Shizu-chan, excessive horniness as a result of anger is not a normal human reaction. Ah, but I guess you’re not a normal human are you? You’re a monster.” Izaya’s hand moves from where it’s resting on his shoulder to his cheek, patting him there condescendingly, and Shizuo immediately reaches up to grab his wrist in annoyance. “What, now you’re going to get hard again?” He looks pointedly at Shizuo’s bare crotch, and although Shizuo isn’t horny right now, the fact that Izaya is staring so hard at his dick makes him self conscious and he wishes he’d just stayed in bed instead of letting the flea irritate him as usual.

“No,” he says, tightening his grip on Izaya’s wrist, feeling satisfied when Izaya winces. “If you already know what making me angry is gonna do, then why piss me off all the time, unless you’re doing it on _purpose_ because you want me to fuck you after.”

“My, my,” Izaya laughs. “The monster has been working on his critical thinking skills! But he fails to understand that he’s the one who’s always horny, and not me, so there’s no need for me to provoke him into fucking me.”

“Please,” Shizuo scoffs and lets Izaya’s wrist go to bend and pick up his clothes. He makes a face at the sticky pair of boxers he finds and decides there’s no point in getting dressed before a shower. “You can’t even spend a day without kissing me, let alone sex.”

“That’s completely untrue.”

“Sure.”

“Then,” Izaya says, following him to the bathroom with his own clothes that he dumps into the washing machine with Shizuo’s. “Let’s bet on it.”

“What?”

“A bet.”

“On what?”

“On who can go longer without kissing.”

Shizuo frowns, crossing his arms. He’s known Izaya long enough to know that making a bet with someone like Izaya is a bad idea. But then again, this is something he can _control_ , and unlike the flea’s assumptions, he is very good at keeping his horniness in check and can very much go a while without kissing. He’s only been dating Izaya for a few months, after all. He’s lived a decent life, with a rare date here and there and a few one night stands that had enough of a gap between them for him to be able to say he doesn’t let his dick overpower his brain. This is _easy_.

“What do I get if I win?”

Izaya hums, raising an eyebrow. “I don’t like that confident expression on your face, Shizu-chan, you should be more aware of your position.”

“You mean my position of victory?”

“No, your position as the loser.”

“I haven’t lost yet.”

“But you _will_.”

“What do I get when I win?” he says, ignoring Izaya, who scowls and pokes his chest with a long, pointy finger that Shizuo grabs and twists until Izaya is hitting him to make him let go.

“You absolute _brute_ , how do you expect me to do my job without my fingers?!”

“Your job is shady as fuck, anyway.”

“And it also pays for your pudding, so either you can quit leeching off me for your ridiculous diet, or leave me alone about where my money comes from.”

“I can buy my own fucking pudding,” Shizuo says, although he feels slightly sorry for hurting Izaya, though he’s not going to voice it. If he does, Izaya will never leave him alone, and given that Izaya already doesn’t leave him alone, he doesn’t want that much excess of flea in his life. He deflects by going back to the topic. “What do I get when I win?”

“Oh, so it’s _when_ and not _if_ now?”

“I’m going to fucking win.”

“Sure thing, Shizu-chan.” Izaya smiles his stupid, irritating smile and tilts his head to the side in that annoying way that he does when he’s about to say something obnoxious. Normally, Shizuo would kiss him to shut him up before he even starts, but he’s trying to prove a point here, so he doesn’t. “If you win, I’ll do anything you want me to.”

Shizuo raises an eyebrow at that. It’s rare for Izaya to give him so much free control – usually he demands a fixed price, that Shizuo isn’t allowed to budge at, because even though Izaya loves unpredictability, that love is apparently only limited for humans and not for how the world runs.

Which Shizuo thinks is kind of stupid, since the world works because of humans, and humans continue being – well, _humans_ , because of how the world works so Izaya is just an annoyingly pretentious little parasite who Shizuo still cannot for the life of him understand why he’s into.

“And what if I don’t, which I’m not going to, but in case I don’t – “

“Shizu-chan really is confident about this, isn’t he? It’s the same both ways, I guess. You do anything I want you to.”

“Fine, but it has to be reasonable, and if you try anything I’ll kill you.”

Izaya laughs. “Of course, of course. Don’t you trust me?”

“No,” Shizuo tells him, without missing a beat and rolls his eyes at the mock show of offense Izaya puts on. A loud beep from the washing machine alerts him to the fact that the wash cycle is already over, and that they’ve been standing here in the bathroom, stark naked for the past ten minutes, arguing about stupid things, and that he has to be at work by noon or Tom-san will – well, Tom-san wouldn’t say anything to him because he’s Tom-san, but Shizuo would feel guilty and he hates feeling guilty.

“I’m going to shower,” he announces, pushing Izaya slightly in the direction of the door. “Get out.”

“I thought we were going to shower _together_?” Is what Izaya has to say, and Shizuo almost punches him. After that entire ridiculous, long-winded argument about not kissing and fucking, the flea has the gall to say they should shower together? He’s just about to voice the thought when Izaya decides to continue speaking: “We’re just _showering_ , Shizu-chan, we’re not about to do anything. What did you think?”

“I think you’re an annoying little bitch and I’m going to throw you out of the window right now.”

“So everyone can see me naked? Is this how you treat all your lovers? No wonder you’ve never been in a relationship before.” Izaya grins at him, and Shizuo has to tell himself that it’s just an attempt at riling him up, to make him lose from the get-go, and that if he fails, he’s going to owe Izaya a favor within five minutes of him having boasted about how he’s never going to lose. He decides he hates Izaya very much.

“Ah, but Shizu-chan,” Izaya continues, and Shizuo only has a second to process what’s happening before Izaya pushes him backwards towards the shower cabinet until his back is pressed against the cool glass. “We haven’t decided on _when_ to start yet, so,” he steps closer – close enough for Shizuo to have to bend his neck down to look him in the eye and it’s only moments like these that Shizuo realizes how much smaller Izaya actually is. “I propose we start after we shower.”

Shizuo considers turning the offer down if only to prove a point, but then Izaya pushes himself on tip toes to press a kiss to his lips, and the part of his brain that’s best friends with his dick decides that the oncoming wait is long enough, and he might as well get a boost.

He is late for work.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for the comments and kudos, I'm glad you like this as much as I like writing it!

**oo1.**

 

He spends the whole day with Tom-san just because he knows Izaya doesn’t like Tom-san. He’s not sure why – he suspects it’s something akin to jealousy, but he doesn’t understand why Izaya would be jealous of _Tom-san_. But Izaya’s mind works in mysterious ways so Shizuo doesn’t completely set the possibility aside. In a way he thinks he might even be flattered, even if it’s probably not true.

He hasn’t talked to Izaya since this morning, when Izaya had stepped up to him in the kitchen after they had finished showering – ‘showering’ – and leaned in so close Shizuo had thought they weren’t going to do this bet thing after all.

A large part of his brain had sighed in relief at that, but Izaya only shifted so his mouth was level with Shizuo’s ear and whispered in what Shizuo had learnt during these past few months was Izaya’s flirty, I’m-trying-to-get-you-into-bed tone: “Good luck, Shizu-chan.”

Despite whatever Izaya claims, Shizuo isn’t actually all that horny. He just likes kissing Izaya – to shut him up when he starts spouting some stupid shit, and also because Izaya turns a really fascinating shade of red that Shizuo finds cute – and because usually they just rile each other up to the point that Shizuo doesn’t know for sure what _other_ conclusion they’re supposed to reach besides angrily making out on the couch. Or something.

So this bet _shouldn’t_ be, and wasn’t _supposed_ to be a big deal, because he’s perfectly capable of controlling himself and going a few days without kissing Izaya. It’s not even like he hasn’t done this before while they were dating. Sometimes Izaya just stays in Shinjuku for a week or more because of work, and sometimes he runs off to some other place without telling Shizuo about it and when he answers his phone he says something like “Aw, does Shizu-chan miss me?” – which naturally pisses Shizuo off.

Maybe it’s the fact that they’ve bet on it – or maybe it’s just because it’s Izaya, Shizuo doesn’t care – but he wants to go over to Shinra’s, where he knows Izaya is because he was sent an obnoxious text informing him about it attached to which was a picture of Izaya making kissy faces at the camera, and just kiss him hard before maybe throwing him off the balcony.

If Izaya is dead, he can’t win.

He snorts at the thought and when Tom-san calls it a day, he immediately heads towards Shinra’s house.

He will _not_ be the only one feeling frustrated.

 

* * *

 

“Do you really think you can keep your hands off each other for a few days?” Is how Shinra greets him at the door, and Shizuo scowls at him. To begin with, it’s none of Shinra’s business what he is and isn’t capable of doing – and that’s an _is_ capable; he’s not _weak_ – and also, how the fuck did Shinra even find out?

He glares hard enough to make Shinra step aside and let him in, even though Shinra isn’t really scared of him. Izaya is sitting on the couch in the living room, looking very smug and pleased with himself. Shizuo’s scowl deepens.

“I thought it’d be super _exciting_ to let other people in,” Izaya tells him as he sits down on the other end of the couch, keeping some distance between them because if they get close enough Shizuo might just punch Izaya in the face. With his fists and not his lips for once. “Shinra says I’ll win.”

“I said nothing of the sort!” Shinra announces cheerfully, stepping into the room and taking a seat next to Celty on the other couch. “I don’t even understand why you’d do something like this, I’d never be able to keep from kissing Celty for even a day! Although I can’t really kiss her in the traditional sense but just imagining having to refrain from expressing my love is such a horrifying tho – “

He is cut off by Celty, whose shadows wrap themselves neatly around his mouth and she holds up her PDA. _Sorry_ , it says and Shizuo shrugs his shoulders. He would be annoyed – and he _is_ annoyed, but he’d be _more_ annoyed if he wasn’t used to Shinra’s babbling by now. And it’s very unfortunate that he has people like Izaya _and_ Shinra in his life that he meets on a daily basis, but it is what it is.

“Anyway,” Izaya is saying now. “I’m obviously going to win.”

“Like hell you are.”

“It’s about time you let go of your delusions, Shizu-chan,” Izaya says, and crosses one leg over the other as he leans back against the couch and the image is such a haughty one that Shizuo has no choice but to lean over and pinch his thigh. “That _hurt_ , you _monster_ , I did nothing to deserve that!”

“You’re a parasite,” Shizuo tells him promptly, and then for the sake of getting the last word: “And you were the one who jumped into the shower with me this morning.”

It’s only after the words leave his mouth that he realizes they have an audience, and he shoots a worried look in the other direction to see Shinra looking at them with his eyes twinkling and Shizuo is sure there would be a wide smile on his face if it weren’t for Celty’s shadows. Celty looks positively traumatized – or however much she can look traumatized without any facial expression to deliver it, but Shizuo is good at reading her body language by now, and he feels slightly remorseful at having given more information than what she needed.

“I was _saving water_ ,” Izaya starts to say, but Shizuo pinches his thigh again to make him shut up and that is the end of it.

 

* * *

 

 

They are heading to the door when he first notices it.

Shizuo stares at the _thing_ for a few seconds, scowling at it as he does because why the fuck is it there, before he realizes that this is probably one of the flea’s tricks. It’s just like Izaya to resort to sabotage when he thinks he might not win. Which is of course, how it’s going to work in this case because there is no way in hell Shizuo is going to _lose_.

“Oi, flea,” he says, scowling up at it still, and Izaya, who is passing by towards the door, _very conveniently_ stops next to him and gives him a questioning look. His eyes follow Shizuo’s gaze and land on the sprig of mistletoe hanging innocently on the ceiling. “What the fuck is that.”

“Well,” Izaya says. “It appears to be mistletoe.”

“Why is it there?”

“Maybe someone wants to kiss a certain someone else very badly?”

“Do you really think I’m stupid enough to fall for _mistletoe_?”

Izaya shoots him an insulted look that Shizuo takes personal offense from, because this was _his_ idea in the first place. And it was a stupid one too, considering it’s only November and nobody puts up mistletoe around this time. And also he wouldn’t fall for something like mistletoe anyway. Maybe.

Maybe if they hadn’t been playing this game, he would have taken the opportunity to sneak in a kiss to irritate Izaya because Izaya is surprisingly touchy about being too couple-y in public – so much that the only people who really know about their _thing_ are Shinra, Celty, Kasuka, Tom-san and Izaya’s sisters. They hadn’t planned on telling Kururi and Mairu, but they had somehow guessed the code to the digital lock on Izaya’s door and barged in uninvited while Izaya had pushed Shizuo back against the kitchen wall. Thankfully with clothes on.

Either way, Shizuo thinks, the mistletoe is a bit too much.

Apparently, Izaya seems to share that sentiment.

“How did Shizu-chan manage to put up mistletoe in Shinra’s house is what I’d like to know,” he says, folding his arms across his chest. “With all your impatience, I still didn’t think you were _that_ desperate to kiss me.”

“Fuck you, I am _not_. Don’t blame this on me like everything else you do, I haven’t been to Shinra’s house in _days_.”

“Well, it wasn’t _me_ ,” there is a smile playing at Izaya’s lips now. “So you tell me, why did you stop to notice the mistletoe considering it’s _right above_ our heads, and shouldn’t be visible unless you look up, and why did you stop me _right under_ it, if it’s not meant to be your attempt at cheating?”

Shizuo’s hands reach to grab the front of Izaya’s shirt almost on reflex. Despite all these months, sometimes it is a struggle trying to remind himself that he does not, in fact, hate this man, but almost seem to be fond of him. Maybe even love him, sometimes.

But he also sometimes hates him, so Shizuo doesn’t stop himself now like he does many other times and pushes Izaya against the wall behind him hard enough that it hurts but not enough to put him _through_ the wall. He feels bad about being the most frequent cause of destruction for Celty’s apartment.

“Are you going to do this again? Blame _me_ for what _you_ do?”

Izaya opens his mouth to respond, but Shinra’s voice floating in from the living room interrupts them. “Oh! You’re standing under the mistletoe!”

Two heads turn to glare daggers at him and Shinra only smiles. “I put it up as an excuse to kiss Celty, but she’s been evading it all this time, and it’s so disappointing that such a lovely tradition would be wasted on you two – no, wait, Shizuo, please put the table down.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Sorry,” Shizuo huffs, shoving his hands in his pockets as they walk home. Izaya has been complaining endlessly about being pushed so hard against Shinra’s walls and Shizuo would feel bad if he hadn’t been doing exactly that for the entire forty minutes it takes to walk from Shinra’s apartment to the station, the train ride itself to Shinjuku and then to walk from the station to Izaya’s apartment. He does feel bad, but he’s not going to voice it.

“You don’t sound sorry at all.”

“I’m not.”

“Of course not,” Izaya sighs dramatically. “I don’t know why I try.”

“Yeah, why _do_ you try?”

“Hmm.” A hand slips into his own. “Maybe I’d like to hear you admit you feel guilty about pushing me around like that all the time.”

“You secretly like it.”

“So you say.” Izaya smiles at him. The sun has gone down by now, and the streets are lit bright by the cars and streetlamps, and Izaya’s eyes seem to gleam more vividly in the artificial lights, as if very telling of the fact that Izaya tries hard enough to come across as just as artificial, save for that slight sliver of truth for authenticity. Shizuo’s only ever needed that sliver, though.

Izaya’s hair looks soft under the lamplight – it’s jet black, and still shines, and Shizuo wants to run his hands through it. Izaya is still talking, spouting some nonsense about nothing of importance, and Shizuo just wants to shut him up. If this were any other day he’d kiss him.

Maybe even though it’s today, he might kiss him.

He definitely _wants_ to.

“Are you listening to me, Shizu-chan?”

“No,” Shizuo says, and turns his eyes back to the pavement in front of them. He is _not_ going to lose.

 

* * *

 

 

**oo2.**

The phone’s incessant ringing is what wakes him up at 6 A.M, Izaya curled up in a ball under the covers pressing warmth into his side as Shizuo blinks drowsily up at the ceiling, disoriented for a few seconds with rising irritation at that stupid music that won’t fucking _stop_.

It’s Izaya’s alarm, he realizes belatedly as his mind makes sense of the pattern with which the music stops and starts up again. The phone is on the nightstand on Izaya’s side of the bed, and Shizuo would reach over to make it stop but Izaya’s head is on his arm looking too comfortable for someone with insomnia and Shizuo pauses, not wanting to disturb him into waking up.

But then the alarm would, if he doesn’t, and the alarm is also driving him nuts, so he carefully withdraws his arm and storms over to the other side to swipe his finger across the screen and finally end that stupid, irritating tune.

It is _way_ too early. There is _nothing_ the flea needs to be doing at 6 A.M, and Shizuo grumbles to himself about having been woken up by Izaya’s alarm while Izaya himself just continues sleeping. He gets back into bed, pulling the covers away from Izaya who has collected them all for himself and shifts closer.

“Shizuo?” Izaya mumbles as he lies back down. His voice is heavy and thick with sleep. “What are you doing?”

“Your stupid fucking alarm.” Shizuo pulls at Izaya’s arm to drag him closer, getting a loud whine of protest in response, but then Izaya snuggles closer and Shizuo tries not to let the way Izaya’s breath feels warm at his neck affect him too much.

On _normal_ days – well, semi-normal, because Shizuo never wakes up this early – Izaya would press a kiss there, and move upwards towards his mouth, and they wouldn’t get out of bed for a while. But today isn’t a normal day, and kissing is off limits, so Shizuo settles for pressing his lips to Izaya’s forehead in a very much _not-kiss_ instead.

“Don’t you think this is kind of stupid?” Izaya murmurs against his skin. “You obviously want to kiss me, so holding out like this is so pointless.”

“I’m going to win,” Shizuo tells him, ignoring the way Izaya scoffs in response. “It’s only the second day and you’re already trying to make me kiss you.”

“I’m not _trying_ to make you do anything.”

“Sure you’re not. Why did you have to wake up at this godforsaken hour anyway?”

“Ah, right, I have some work to do.” Izaya pushes himself up, blinking the sleep out of his eyes and stretches, making sure to ‘accidentally’ slap Shizuo in the face as he does. “You should get out of bed too, Shizu-chan. You’ll start putting on weight if you laze around so much.”

He pulls the covers tighter around himself when Izaya leaves, now that there are more of them to serve him. He doesn’t get _cold_ easily unlike a certain flea he knows whose hands and feet always feel like they’ve just come back from vacation in Antarctica, but the extra warmth is nice and he feels comfortable.

_Don’t you think this is kind of stupid_

Shizuo stares at the ceiling.

_Holding out like this is pointless_

He snorts to himself. It was just like Izaya to try and get what he wanted in the most roundabout way possible. It _is_ stupid. It’s a stupid, pointless bet and Shizuo doesn’t think he’d even care about it as much if it wasn’t for Izaya being so convinced he couldn’t win.

He could just have kissed him then – just like Izaya ‘secretly’ wanted. But this is kind of fun, he thinks and smiles to himself.

 

* * *

 

 

The Karisawa girl hears about it.

At first, Shizuo stares at her blankly, trying to figure out who the fuck could have told _her_ of all people, but then his mind flashes back to Izaya loudly babbling away on the phone to Kadota and telling him way more detail than Shizuo thinks Kadota is comfortable with knowing and assumes it was the way the stupid flea hadn’t been trying to keep the volume of his voice phone-appropriate that Karisawa heard it, and now has him cornered. Sort of.

He’d been walking towards Russia Sushi to grab lunch when he’d run into them, and is now standing on the pavement with Kadota holding his head in his hands next to him and that Yumasaki guy trying to make her stop as she rambles on about the sexual tension between ‘Shizu-Shizu’ and ‘Izayan’.

Shizuo does not appreciate the nickname but he files away ‘Izayan’ into his memory to annoy the flea about it later.

“The want between them will heighten with every glance they take in each other’s direction until they can’t take it anymore, till they’re growing desperate and want nothing more than to feel the velvety touch of the other’s hands on their bodies – !”

“Ignore her,” Kadota tells him, putting a hand on Shizuo’s arm in an attempt to pacify him. Shizuo thinks Karisawa is lucky she’s a girl because he wouldn’t hesitate to punch a man if he spouted this sort of nonsense to his face. He is somewhat grateful when Yumasaki covers her mouth with his hand because he doesn’t think he can take it anymore. “She’s always like this.”

Shizuo frowns at the thought of having his personal life with Izaya being discussed so obscenely, and in such vulgar detail but decides he’s not going to throw a fit. If he does, then Izaya will make fun of him later and claim that he couldn’t control himself which is obviously not the case.

“Shizuo-san!” Karisawa says to him, looking remarkably unafraid of asking. “Do you think you’d be able to control it?”

Kadota looks scandalized, but Shizuo shrugs.

He _can_ , that’s never been the issue.

But he doesn’t really _want_ to.

 

* * *

 

 

Izaya is lying on his bed and sucking a lollipop when he gets home in the evening.

Of course, since it’s Izaya, Shizuo hadn’t been unprepared for sabotage. It’s been two whole days, and after Izaya’s unintentional admission this morning, he’s been considering and mulling over the possibility of entering his apartment and finding Izaya lounging around, barely clothes, in an attempt to seduce him into losing, even though the flea has never actively tried to seduce him before.

Izaya doesn’t even _like_ candy.

“What are you eating,” he says, standing in the doorway of the bedroom and undoing the buttons of his vest all the while glaring daggers at Izaya looking at him innocently from where he’s sprawled over the bed. He’s wearing one of Shizuo’s T-shirts and sweatpants – both of which are too big for him and the pants are rolled up, and further pushed up to his calves from the way he’s lounging around. “And why are you in my house.”

Izaya slowly pulls the lollipop out of his mouth with a _pop_ and licks his lips, now a brilliant shade of red from the coloring. Shizuo stares at them, the motion of his hands now frozen. “Is that any way to greet someone you’re supposedly seeing?”

“When that someone is you, it’s the only proper greeting,” He says, but his attention is elsewhere, and it takes him a few seconds to snap his attention back to reality and tell himself that this is an obvious attempt at distracting him from the goal – his win – and turns his focus back to getting changed.

“How mean,” Izaya sighs and shakes his head. He watches Shizuo walk over to the dresser and pull out his own sweatpants and T-shirt, carefully setting his bowtie on top and hanging up his vest on the closet doors to put away later. He looks Shizuo right in the eye when he turns around, and brings the lollipop up to his mouth, a smirk pulling at the edges of his lips as does.

Shizuo rolls his eyes and announces that he’s going to take a shower before leaving the room.

 

* * *

 

 

“That actually tasted terrible,” Izaya tells him later, once he’s showered and cooked and they are seated at the table in the kitchen, picking at the vegetables in his curry. “I don’t know how you eat those things.”

“Then why did you eat it,” Shizuo grumbles. The image of Izaya’s lips around the lollipop is still vivid in his mind, the _pop_ sound still replaying itself in his head and he’s doing his best to not look at Izaya now, because he does not have the best record at willpower and there is no way he’s going to lose before even two days are over.

“Oh, you know, I just wanted you to lose.”

“Are you sure it’s not because you wanted me to kiss you?”

“Of course not.” Izaya looks offended at the mere suggestion. He puts some of the carrots from his plate into Shizuo’s. “Why would I want that?”

“Are you saying you _don’t_ want it?”

“Maybe.” Izaya smirks at him. “Does Shizu-chan want it?”

Shizuo’s hand pauses. He’s about to deny it, of course, as it always goes, but when he looks up and sees the smug smile on Izaya’s face, as if he thinks he’s got Shizuo _cornered_ or something, he decides nothing hits harder than the truth. He resumes eating, shrugging nonchalantly as he replies: “Yeah, I do. I want to kiss you.”

As expected – and Shizuo feels very pleased with himself – Izaya’s eyes widen. He stares at Shizuo for a bit before bursting into laughter, pulling his feet up onto the chair to sit cross-legged and leaning his head against the back of the chair. To anyone else, it might look like amusement, but Shizuo knows Izaya by now. They’ve been practically cohabitating for _months_ , and Shizuo knows how Izaya tries to cover up his embarrassment, and the hint of red at Izaya’s ears when he stops pretending to laugh doesn’t miss him.

“You’re holding out pretty well then, aren’t you?” Izaya says, finally looking Shizuo in the eye. “A monster like you, exercising _willpower_? That’s worthy of headlines, no?”

“It’s only been two days,” Shizuo reminds him. “Two days is nothing. Sometimes you up and disappear for weeks, do you think I go around kissing people then?”

“Who knows. I wouldn’t know if you do, would I?”

Shizuo scowls at that. It doesn’t matter whether or not the flea doesn’t want to put a label on their relationship, but it’s pretty clear to both of them – or at least, it is to Shizuo – that this is _something_ , and to accuse him of _cheating_ –

“I don’t,” he growls and points his chopsticks at Izaya’s plate. “Shut up and finish your food.”

Izaya smiles mischievously at him. “Feed me.”

“What?”

“I’ll eat it all, and seconds, if you feed me.”

“Why should I _feed_ you, like some kind of – “ He’s interrupted by Izaya opening his mouth, saying _aah_ and clearly looking like he’s smiling, even with his mouth open like that. Frowning, Shizuo purposefully picks out a piece of carrot from his curry and holds it out. Izaya’s mouth closes around his chopsticks, but his eyes are on Shizuo and gleaming behind the strands of hair that fall into his face. He pulls away leisurely, letting the end of the chopsticks linger on his bottom lip for a few seconds longer than necessary and chews ever so slowly; that stupid smile _still_ dancing around his lips so Shizuo can’t pull his gaze away.

“Fuck you,” Shizuo tells him, forcing his attention back to his food. “Feed yourself.”

Izaya only laughs.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> About Izaya's lockcode, I spent like an hour going through the Book of Isaiah for a good enough verse to reference but then I settled for cheesy, OOC stuff instead.

**oo3.**

Shizuo is _sure_ he wasn’t supposed to hear that.

Izaya doesn’t usually meetings with the Awakusu-kai at his apartment – in fact, now that Shizuo spends so much time over, he doesn’t hold a lot of meetings with _anyone_ at his apartment. He even calls his secretary and tells her not to come in when Shizuo is around which Shizuo thinks is a waste of all his money although Izaya just waves him off when he voices it, but sometimes there’s an emergency and Shizuo wakes up to a note on the bedside table telling him not to come downstairs because there are ‘guests’ over.

He’d come over in the evening because Tom-san had told him there weren’t any more people to hunt down today. Usually on days he got off early, he went to see Kasuka, but Kasuka was out of the country for filming and Shizuo didn’t have anything better to do. He spent some time with Celty, and let Kadota force him to sit down and have a bite of sushi which meant he had to sit through some of Karisawa’s annoying chatter, but even after all that, Shizuo thought it was much too early to go home and do nothing.

So he’d ended up in Shinjuku. Izaya had shamelessly laughed at his face when he opened the door and Shizuo had pushed his way through, mumbling something about how Izaya could just pick the lock to _his_ apartment while Shizuo had to come and ring the doorbell like a guest.

“Are you asking me to give you a spare key?”

Shizuo had paused – he hadn’t actually meant that, but he could see why Izaya would jump to the conclusion. “No,” he said. “But if you did give me one, I’d take it.”

“Well, then.” Izaya strolled over to the desk and leaned against it. “You give me one too.”

Shizuo stared at him for a moment before pulling his own key out of his pocket and tossing it to Izaya. It was on a small keychain of a cat that he’d gotten through one of those claw machines. Izaya looked at it for a few seconds, taking in a deep breath before he spoke, “This is your key, Shizu-chan.”

“And now it’s yours,” Shizuo shrugged.

“Mhm.” Izaya pocketed the key, a smile pulling at the corners of his lips that Shizuo knew he was trying to fight, and looked up. “Shizu-chan, do you know 128 is a deficient number?”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that if you add all the numbers you can divide 128 by, the result is smaller than 128.” Izaya looked at him and raised an eyebrow. “You get 127, in this case. Obviously, to get a four digit number with those integers, you’ll have to add a zero before or after it, but because 1280 is boring and not deficient, I like 0128 more.”

“What the fuck are you talking about, you stupid flea?”

“The key, Shizu-chan,” Izaya said. “You wanted a spare key.”

Shizuo blinked at him in confusion, but Izaya wasn’t paying any attention anymore. He’d sat himself at the desk and started working but Shizuo didn’t miss the way his hand stayed in his pocket, clutching the key Shizuo had tossed at him.

It occurred to him about an hour later, when he was upstairs in the shower that the four-digit number was the code to Izaya’s digital lock.

And then again, when he was just about to throw himself on Izaya’s uncomfortable mattress what the numbers in the code itself entailed and he’d stormed out of the room, ready to grab Izaya and kiss him anyway, because who the fuck _cared_ anymore, when he heard it.

Which brings him to where he is now – standing at the top of the stairs just hidden from view while Izaya sits with a guest on the sofa set underneath.

“You’ve been very irritable these past two days,” an unknown voice says. “Is there anything troubling you?”

“Of course not, Shiki-san,” Izaya replies coolly, and Shizuo can almost see the obnoxious deceiving smile on his face that he uses to try and hide how he’s feeling. “Everything is just fine.”

Shizuo recognizes the name as one of the Awakusu-kai and scowls at the idea of Izaya still messing around with the mafia even after Shizuo has told him he doesn’t like it. Not that Izaya has to listen to him – and probably won’t, even if he had to – but Shizuo doesn’t like the thought of Izaya being in any kind of danger at any time, which is ironic because most of the danger in Izaya’s life had usually come in the form of vending machines and other heavy objects thrown by Shizuo’s own hand

But that was _before_.

Shiki clearly doesn’t buy Izaya’s apparent well-being and continues on: “I’ve heard from my other sources that there is some kind of _wager_ going on between you and Heiwajima.”

Shizuo frowns at that. How the _fuck_ does the fucking _mafia_ know about their stupid bet? Izaya seems to be wondering the same thing because he laughs out loud and says something about Shinra not knowing how to keep his mouth shut.

“In any case, Informant,” Shiki says. “No matter the personal details of your life, I hope it isn’t going to affect the quality of your work.”

“I’m not _irritable_ because of this wager, Shiki-san. It’s hardly the kind to affect business.”

Shizuo snorts quietly to himself and turns to go back into the bedroom. He’s heard all he needed to, anyway.

 

* * *

 

 

When Izaya saunters in a few hours later, with his hair a mess and looking like he’s just drank three cups of coffee mixed with energy drinks and at least five different simulating drugs, Shizuo is lying in bed and reading one of the novels Izaya has on his shelf.

They’re all boring novels with too little plot and too much _thinking_ in Shizuo’s opinion – it’s not that he doesn’t understand it; he’s just bored and trying to kill time and all this introspection is making his head hurt a bit, so when Izaya comes into the room, Shizuo puts it aside immediately and lets Izaya fall dramatically on top of him, making him grunt at the impact.

“You’re all bone and no flesh,” he murmurs and pushes Izaya next to him – which gets him a loud whine of protest which immediately turns into a moan when he sits up and starts pressing his thumbs into Izaya’s shoulders.

“And you’re too much of both.” He manages after a few moments of silence and Shizuo has to redo the conversation in his head to make sense of it.

“What do you mean by too much bone, I have exactly the same number of bones as everyone else.”

“And I have one more now,” Izaya turns his head to the side, resting his cheek on the pillow and giving him a cheeky look. “Wanna see?”

Shizuo raises an eyebrow. He knows Izaya is probably expecting him to get embarrassed, or irritated, or maybe to snap and finally end this dumb bet. But he’s not that stupid, of course. Using one hand, he flips Izaya over onto his back and notices that there is indeed a tent in his pants. Izaya lies there listlessly, looking up at him with half lidded eyes that get just the slightest bit wider when Shizuo fits his hands on Izaya’s hips, letting his fingers fit through the belt hoops before letting them go and moving his hands upwards.

There is an embarrassing loud scream.

“Let go! Let go of me, you stupid, _stupid – ahh don’t you dare – “_ Izaya’s voice is cut off by laughs as Shizuo continues to tickle him, holding Izaya’s kicking legs together between his own and somehow dodging his flailing arms. “I hate you, let _go_ of me, you _monster_!”

With one well-timed slap to the face, Shizuo lets go, leaving Izaya lying there breathless and furious. He’d be furious too, about being slapped, but he’s too amused for that right now.

“Is your extra bone gone now?” He asks, innocently. “It’d suck if it became a problem later, y’know.”

Izaya glares at him. He turns over onto his stomach again with a muttered warning about touching him again and Shizuo only laughs, going back to massaging his aching shoulders instead. Izaya tenses again at the first touch of Shizuo’s fingers but relaxes after a few moments when Shizuo promises he’s not going to tickle him again.

“Hey,” he says. “You were trying to seduce me just now.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Shizu-chan,” Izaya mumbles into the pillow. “Getting a boner because of a massage is completely normal and completely unplanned.”

“Mhm. And also Shiki-san said you were irritable because we had a bet going on.”

Izaya tenses up and shoots a glare over his shoulder at Shizuo again. “Were you _eavesdropping_?”

“No,” Shizuo replies, honestly. He hadn’t been eavesdropping. And he’d always made it a point not to hang around whenever Izaya’s clients came to the apartment, as rare as that was now. He didn’t want to accidentally find out something that he wasn’t supposed to know and ruin his peaceful life. “I just overhead that part.”

“I’m not irritable.” Izaya turns back, but the back of his ears have become red and Shizuo can’t help but laugh again.

“Sure, you’re not.”

“Go die.”

“You’d be pretty sad if I died.” Shizuo hums thoughtfully. “If I died right now, you wouldn’t have kissed me for 3 days _and_ you’d never be able to kiss me again.”

“I’ll kiss every other human out there,” Izaya says. “You’re very easily replaceable Shizu-chan, don’t be so full of yourself.”

“Oh yeah?” Shizuo pauses his massage to flip Izaya over again, pushing his hair out of his eyes and laughing at the way he’s scowling up at Shizuo, with his nose scrunched up, looking like a very whiny baby. It’s _cute_. “I don’t think you’d enjoy that very much.”

“Sure, tell yourself that.”

“I will.” Shizuo shift closer, the hands on Izaya’s shoulders moving up to cup his face as Shizuo lets his elbows hold him up so he’s looming over Izaya’s body. Izaya looks slightly confused now, and his gaze, Shizuo notices, keeps straying down to his mouth. He licks his lips on purpose, and Izaya’s eyes flit up towards his own. He scowls when he realizes it was intentional.

“This is cheating,” Izaya mumbles, but he’s not trying to stop himself from staring at Shizuo’s lips now.

“How is this cheating?”

“You can’t keep me hostage.”

“I’m not,” Shizuo says. “You can leave anytime.”

“You’re going to lose.”

“Then I guess you’ll win.”

“Shizu-chan,” Izaya murmurs as Shizuo leans in close. He can feel Izaya’s breath on his face and can smell the coffee he’s probably overdosed on while working. His mouth probably tastes the same. “Shizu-chan, kiss me.”

Shizuo lets himself move near, watches Izaya’s eyes flutter shut in expectation as he does and then with utmost gentleness, he presses his mouth to Izaya’s cheek, drags it to Izaya’s right ear and whispers: _“No.”_

Izaya lies there with the biggest scowl on his face and Shizuo laughs to himself as he heads downstairs to get himself some milk.

 

* * *

 

 

**oo4.**

Shizuo wakes up on the couch.

He blinks groggily up at the ceiling that’s further from his face than usual and groans. His back and neck hurt – the sofa isn’t very comfortable but he’s not surprised he’d ended up here. After the tickle fest last night, and the fact that when he came back upstairs from the kitchen he’d caught Izaya in an intense make out session with the pillow – _his_ pillow – and proceeded to laugh his ass off.

Izaya had flamed red and tried really hard to pretend he wasn’t embarrassed by continuing with it as if he wasn’t bothered by Shizuo’s presence at all, but Shizuo had laughed a bit too long and had the pillow thrown into his face and the door locked behind him.

He sits up to see Izaya at his desk, typing away with one hand while occasionally looking at the phone in his other hand which he’s tapping on for something else. Shizuo’s never been able to understand how Izaya does that – it’s hard enough to type with two hands but Izaya does it with so much speed he doesn’t even need to look down to see what he’s doing.

The last time Shizuo had to use Izaya’s laptop – the other one; a sleek, expensive looking thing that’s his personal laptop and doesn’t have any work-related thing on it – Izaya made fun of him for his ‘grandpa technology skills’ and he had threatened to throw said laptop out the window. Izaya had snatched it away immediately.

He looks up now as Shizuo kicks off the blankets that Izaya had been generous enough to throw down over the banisters as he’d lay down, and croaks out a ‘good morning’.

“It’s almost noon,” Izaya tells him.

“It’s my day off.”

“And that means you get to spend all day making my couch unusable?”

“It’s not like you’re using it.” He half wants to lie down again and go back to sleep just for that comment, but the couch is pretty uncomfortable and if he’s going to sleep, he might as well go upstairs to the bedroom. Izaya’s turned back to his work now, so Shizuo walks over to the desk, leaning over it in a way he knows Izaya will object to and sure enough, Izaya turns his head to start yelling at him for ruining his things. Shizuo closes the distance between them before he can.

Izaya is silent.

Not because Shizuo is silencing him or anything – their lips are still separated by a good 5 centimeters or so, but Shizuo rubs his nose to Izaya’s and Izaya simply freezes as if he doesn’t know what to do in a situation like this.

In all honesty, if he’d done the same to Shizuo, Shizuo doesn’t know if he’d be sure how to react either. But it doesn’t matter, because he’s the one with the upper hand right now.

Izaya looks at him with wide eyes, pink cheeks and parted lips when Shizuo straightens up. All the agitation at messing around on his desk is gone, and he blinks up at Shizuo for a moment. Shizuo grins.

He thinks about leaning in properly now, pressing his own lips against Izaya’s now that he has the element of surprise, because if he does it now, Izaya won’t expect it because he’ll think it’s just going to be another _not-kiss_.

He doesn’t.

He’s not about to lose. It’s already been three days.

“Eskimo kisses should still count as kisses, no?” Izaya manages. “Shizu-chan loses.”

“Do I?”

“Yes, you do.” He stands up, kicking his chair back with one leg as he does and walks out from behind the desk. Shizuo doesn’t move, and lets Izaya come up to him with that stupid, dazed look on his face that makes it so obvious what he’s thinking, even if Izaya isn’t aware that his expression is a dead giveaway.

“I don’t think so,” Shizuo says, when skinny arms wrap themselves around his waist. “I didn’t use my lips.”

“You kissed my forehead two days ago, then.”

“But that didn’t involve _your_ lips.”

“Shizu-chan.” Izaya says, leaning in with a dangerous smile on his face. “I _really_ hate you.”

Shizuo laughs out loud. “Love you too.”

 

* * *

 

 

Shizuo is in a good mood all day. For one thing, Izaya is in a _bad_ one, and for another, Izaya looks cute when he’s trying hard to keep a hold on his dignity but it’s slipping through his fingers aided by his desperation. It’s amusing, to say the least.

He is sitting in front of the TV, watching a rerun of an old melodramatic TV show he remembers watching half asleep every evening when it first ran. The female lead is going to die, but there is nothing else on, so he watches it now, not actually paying attention to it as much as he’s just thinking about –

Nothing, really.

There isn’t anything to think about.

He doesn’t notice when Izaya comes to sink down onto the couch next to him until he rests his head on Shizuo’s shoulder and comments on the inconsistencies in the drama.

“Are there any? I never watched it close enough to notice.”

“Yes, well, Shizu-chan has never been very good at paying attention to detail.” Izaya sighs dramatically and shakes his head, as if he’s relaying very devastating news and takes the remote to turn the TV off. He ignores Shizuo’s protest of _hey I was watching that!_ and moves to sit in Shizuo’s lap so he’s straddling him, moving forward and simultaneously pushing him back so he’s leaning against the couch.

“What are you doing now, stupid flea,” Shizuo says, bringing his hands up to rest on Izaya’s thighs as Izaya smiles and moves near. Shizuo isn’t _stupid_ – he’s pretty sure Izaya isn’t going to actually do anything, and this is a form of revenge for that eskimo kiss earlier, but he’s still startled when Izaya grinds down against him, getting a choked groan from him and pressing his lips to Shizuo’s cheek instead.

Shizuo’s fingers press hard into Izaya’s thighs and he laughs airily into Shizuo’s ear. “Sorry, Shizu-chan, we have a bet.”

“Oh yeah?”  

“Yeah.”

Shizuo twists them around, pushing so Izaya is lying on the couch with Shizuo on top of him, and then it’s his turn to grind their hips together, making Izaya groan as well.

Shizuo takes a good look at him. His face is tinged pink, teeth biting down on his bottom lip, eyes glazed over, hair a mess. He looks _good_.

And there is _only_ so much Shizuo can take.

He brings his head down to the pale skin at Izaya’s neck, biting down as one hand finds both of Izaya’s to pin them up over his head while the other slips under the waistband of his pants.

“Shizu-chan,” Izaya moans out. “We have a _bet_.”

“Mm.”

“So you’re admitting defeat?”

“No.”

“You’re this close to – _ah_ – fucking me on the living room couch.”

Shizuo’s hand pauses. Izaya looks disappointed at that, and even more so when Shizuo retracts his hand and moves to stand, dragging Izaya close to pick him up as he does so Izaya is left to cling to him while he takes them towards the stairs. “We’re moving to the bedroom. No lube here.”

“But you admit you’re losing?”

“No.” Shizuo says. He kicks the bedroom door open, tossing Izaya gracelessly onto the bed. He climbs on top of him and starts undoing the buckle of Izaya’s belt. Izaya raises an eyebrow at him, but the expression changes instantly when Shizuo pulls his pants and underwear down his legs in the same movement and his hand resumes what it was doing.

His mouth finds its place back on Izaya’s neck.

“You – you _lose_ , Shizu-chan,” Izaya manages.

“Nah. This ain’t a fuckin’ kiss, flea.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This got really long and is also nowhere near completion yet so I guess there's going to be one more chapter. I also accidentally made this really sappy because I wrote it all in one sitting and got super emotional about them midway, so please forgive me for that.
> 
> As usual, thanks so much for your comments/kudos! They keep me inspired<3

“You’re the worst, Shizu-chan.” Izaya smacks him in the face with a pillow. There’s no real force behind it because they’re both still sluggish in the afterglow, and Izaya is weak anyway.

“I didn’t kiss you at all,” Shizuo tells him. And he didn’t. He didn’t kiss Izaya _at all_.

He hadn’t really noticed how _loud_ Izaya could be, because his mouth is frequently occupied with Shizuo’s. He had tried, Shizuo had noticed it – he’d bit his tongue, his lip, the pillow, Shizuo’s shoulder which is now covered in marks but Izaya is covered in more marks so he can’t complain – but he’d still been _pretty loud_. Not that anyone is around to listen, and the walls of this apartment aren’t thin enough for it to carry next door.

Shizuo _almost_ wishes they’d been at his apartment instead.

“The entire reason we even _started_ this is because you’re some kind of sex maniac,” Izaya sits up and glares at him. “Who _can’t keep his hands to himself_.”

“The bet was specifically about kissing, you didn’t mention sex anywhere, even if that’s why you suggested it. And it’s not like you weren’t just as desperate, flea,” Shizuo says. His eyes are still closed and it’s kinda cold here like this, considering it’s November and Izaya has stolen all the blankets for his own weakass body. “You’re the one who _started_ it.”

“I did _not_.”

“Yes, you did. You’re the one who started dry humping me on the couch.”

He can picture the scowl on Izaya’s face perfectly, even though his eyes are still closed and he’s not really paying attention. In _full_ honesty, he knows he’s probably lost. In fact, they both have, considering all the hundred different ways they’ve found to somehow get their mouth on each other – today more so than before. He’s not going to be the one to voice it, though. That would mean admitting that he lost, and that is of course, unacceptable.

“Fine,” Izaya says. Shizuo feels him shift, moving across the bed so he’s lying next to him now with his head resting on Shizuo’s outstretched arm. “You didn’t lose, but no more sex from now on.”

“’From now on’,” Shizuo repeats, opening his eyes now and turning over so he’s facing Izaya. He pulls some of the blankets out of his grip and shifts so they’re covering him as well. They both still need showers, but he’s still feeling lazy and sated and doesn’t want to move for a while. He would just sleep but it’s gross to sleep like this. They also need to wash the bedsheets now.

But Izaya doesn’t move his head, so Shizuo doesn’t make him.

“What do you mean ‘from now on’, how much longer are you trying to drag this out?”

Izaya grins at that, tilting his head up so it’s closer to Shizuo’s, and because he probably feels extra annoying right now, presses his lips to Shizuo’s chin and murmurs against the skin there: “Is Shizu-chan getting impatient? It’s only been four days, you could at least last a week.”

“I could last ten. I could last a month. I could break up with you and last the rest of my life.”

“You and I both know you’re not doing anything of the sort.”

“Aren’t I?”

“No.” Izaya throws one arm over Shizuo’s waist under the blanket. Heat stirs in Shizuo’s stomach at the reminder that they are both still naked and very pressed up against each other but they have a new rule now, and he can’t break it two minutes within making it.

Some part of his brain vaguely weighs the pros and cons of keeping this up, but it’s only been four days. If he breaks now, Izaya would never let it go.

“I’m going to shower,” he announces, pushing the blankets off and getting out of bed, collecting all their dirty clothes as he leaves. “Stop whining and get up.”

 

* * *

 

 

“I’m impressed,” Izaya says later as Shizuo gets ready to go home. “I thought you’d break by now.”

“I told you I wasn’t going to _break_ ,” Shizuo snaps, pulling on his jacket. He carefully folds the bowtie Kasuka had given him and places it in his pocket. “I have more self-control than _you_ do, at least.”

“Yes, of course.” Izaya is sprawled on his stomach on the couch, looking amused. “That’s exactly why you have a track record of throwing everything that otherwise should not be thrown at people they should not be thrown at. Like me. Because you have such _excellent_ self-control.”

“Shut the fuck up. And why shouldn’t I throw things at you? You’re a parasite.”

“Mhm.” Izaya pushes himself up with a grunt and gestures him close. Shizuo considers ignoring him and leaving, but he is planning on not coming back to Shinjuku for the next couple of days because he doesn’t want to know what kind of additional sabotage Izaya has in mind, and he thinks he might be a little too close to snapping. It’s been four days already. And that is nothing really, if he looks at it objectively – he’s lasted longer, and he’s not desperate for kisses or anything.

It’s just fun to have something he’s not supposed to have.

There’s a hint of the same thrill he felt the first time he let Izaya push him up against a wall of a stinky, dark alley and press their lips together – of _secrets_ and _taboo_ , and even though now it’s neither a secret nor a taboo, it still feels like kissing Izaya now is _bad_ and that’s exactly why he wants to do it.

But he’s not going to fucking _lose._

He sighs and moves to sit at the spot Izaya is patting on the couch.

“Shizu- _chan_ ,” Izaya says, dragging it out the honorific in a playful tone that makes the nickname sound infinitely more feminine and annoying than it is otherwise. “Don’t you think this is stupid?”

“It is,” Shizuo says. “You said that two days ago as well, and I’m not falling for it.”

“Falling for what? I’m not trying anything.”

“You’re _always_ trying something.”

“That’s mean.” Izaya rolls over on his back and shifts so his head is resting on Shizuo’s thigh. “Can’t you trust me a bit?”

“No.” Shizuo brings his hand up, intending to poke Izaya in the forehead with one finger – maybe pinch his nose or something, but then he brushes away the wispy strands of hair falling into Izaya’s eyes and the sudden surge of fondness that rushes in at the sight of Izaya’s face – eyes closed, expression calm, lips curved up in a smile – is so strong, Shizuo’s hand stills there in Izaya’s hair and going back to Ikebukuro seems like a bad idea.

He wants to kiss Izaya, if only because if the words don’t leave his mouth at least a kiss would.

“That’s mean,” Izaya says again, opening his eyes and looking at him. “Trust is supposed to be an integral part of any relationship.”

“Not when you’re involved, flea,” Shizuo snorts and stands up, laughing when Izaya tumbles off the couch at the sudden movement and scowls up at him, and then harder when Izaya stands up and punches him in the arm. Of course, Shizuo barely acknowledges it. “I’m going home.”

They lean in at the same time.

In his defense, Shizuo thinks it’s because it’s _habit_.

They have a routine. Izaya hangs around when he gets ready to leave. Shizuo announces he’s going. Izaya comes closer, Shizuo kisses him and leaves. It started off with Shizuo initiating the kisses because there is a sense of comfort in leaving behind something as they part. Izaya wasn’t very partial to the idea of _so many kisses_ in the beginning but he’s warmed up to it.

 _Enough_ , Shizuo thinks, _to actually become used to it._

They stare at each other for a moment – both leaning in and frozen in an awkward position. Izaya regains his composure first, standing straight again and laughing a hurried, obnoxious laugh that doesn’t hide anything, especially with the pink that’s slowly spreading over his face.

“Didn’t you _just_ say you wouldn’t break?”

Shizuo gives him the finger and slams the apartment door behind him. Izaya’s flushed face lingers at the front of his mind the whole way back.

 

**oo5.**

 

“You’ve been in a good mood these days,” Tom-san tells him during lunch, making Shizuo look up from his burger. “I was a bit skeptical about you dating Izaya because he’s not a very nice guy, but it’s doing you good, I think.”

Embarrassment burns on his face.

 _We’re not dating_ , Shizuo wants to say, but they kind of _are_. All his friends know about it, although how they found out, Shizuo doesn’t know. Most of them don’t approve, and Shizuo doesn’t blame them, but thinking back now, he thinks all of them have said something along these lines to him before.

_I don’t like Izaya, but you look happy these days._

“We’re not dating,” he says anyway, because even if they kind of are, they’re also kind of _not_. Izaya hasn’t put the label on yet. Shizuo isn’t about to force him to.

“Aren’t you?” Tom-san asks, looking surprised. “I was sure you were. You spend all your free time with each other, and you even smile at your phone when you text him.”

Shizuo chokes on his soda.

“I _don’t –_ ” he starts, but Tom-san is already speaking.

“At first I really didn’t think it would be good for you because that guy always pisses you off, but these past few months you’ve been more serene than usual. Especially these past few days. Did something happen?”

Shizuo pauses.

 _We’re betting on something stupid and it’s making Izaya clingier than usual_ doesn’t feel like a proper answer.

 _I’m realizing my ability to keep my hands off Izaya is a lot weaker than I thought it was_ is too much information and Shizuo isn’t sure Tom-san would appreciate the mental image. The first time Shizuo had mentioned their relationship, Tom-san had looked so disgusted, Shizuo doesn’t want a repeat of that.

It’s not that he blames Tom-san for feeling that way – he’s sure if it were anyone else, _he’d_ be the exact same, or probably even worse. But he doesn’t like the idea of someone looking _down_ on the flea, as if they have any right to judge him when they don’t know shit.

Shizuo is the only one who can do that.

 _Guess I like him a lot more than I thought I did_ , he thinks to himself. The idea is almost funny.

“Nothing happened,” is what he says out loud to Tom-san, who shrugs and starts talking about which houses they’d be going to today. Shizuo tries listening but he doesn’t really care about where they’re going. Most likely they’ll piss Shizuo off and he’ll throw a fit, they get the money and go back to the office.

Then Shizuo can think about what he’s going to do for the rest of the day.

The options are obvious: go home, eat dinner and sleep. He has to be at work tomorrow, so of course, going to Shinjuku is out of the question, even if he wanted to. Which he doesn’t.

Somehow, over the past day, his objective of winning for the sake of making Izaya lose has changed to winning for the sake of proving to himself that he’s capable of keeping his hands to himself if he wants.

It’s easy to blame yesterday on built up sexual frustration but it had only been four days. Even if Izaya _was_ actively seducing him, he’d given in fast.

Maybe it’s _because_ he’s supposed to be keeping to himself that he’s having problems with it, but he’s starting to realize he may not be as capable as he’d thought. His willpower isn’t as strong as he is. At least, definitely not as strong as his clearly hopeless attraction to Izaya is.

Which should be a disgusting thought, but it isn’t. Shizuo tries not to think too hard about it.

 

* * *

 

 

Celty texts him in the evening.

 _You should have dinner at our place_ , she says. _I tried a new recipe_.

Shizuo blinks at it for a moment. It’s not new for him to eat dinner at Celty’s, but he’s surprised Shinra isn’t being a baby and not allowing anyone to come over and try the food Celty made herself. Shizuo admires the dedication at least – he’s tried Celty’s cooking before, and it can obviously be attributed to her not being able to taste the food she’s making, but it’s pretty detrimental to his taste buds.

Still, she’s his friend, and she tries her best, so he isn’t going to turn her down like that. He texts back an _okay sure_ and is already planning on eating as little as possible without being offensive before going home and having ramen when he gets there. There is a very familiar pair of shoes at the entryway.

Shizuo frowns at them for a moment before the very obnoxious voice of their owner drifts in from the living room and he sighs to himself. The mistletoe, he notices with a quick glance upwards, is gone.

“Shizu-chan, you’re _late_.”

“What the fuck are you doing here,” he growls, stepping inside and shooting Izaya a nasty glare.

“What is that supposed to mean? Shinra invited me.”

“I didn’t,” Shinra tells him. “You came on your own and demanded we invite Shizuo as well, and ruined my date night with Celty.”

Izaya waves him off, ignoring the way Shizuo looks at him.  “Don’t be ridiculous, I _called_ and I _asked_ – “

“No, you called and _insisted_ , even when I said no, thank you.”

“ – if I could come over and you very graciously said yes.”

There is only so much stupidity that should be allowed in the word, Shizuo thinks, and all of that belongs to the two people in front of him. He rolls his eyes and goes to help Celty in the kitchen. She looks frazzled, surrounded by ten different bowls of different ingredients. She types rapidly on her PDA when he approaches.

_Izaya said Shinra likes Korean food so I tried making jjajangmyeon, but I think I’m getting it all wrong._

“Since when do you trust anything Izaya says to you?” Shizuo says, incredulously. He’s already seeing the pieces fit together. Of _course_ it was Izaya. It had to be Izaya. He’s surprised he hadn’t guessed it from the start.

 _I don’t really,_ Celty tells him, but now she seems unsure of herself. _But it didn’t seem like he’d gain anything out of telling me what kind of food Shinra likes._

 _If only you knew_ , Shizuo almost says, but decides to keep it to himself. He rolls up his sleeves instead. “I don’t know how to make jjajangmyeon, but I’ll help out if you have a recipe.”

A few narrowly missed disasters, one long monologue on Shinra’s part about how he’s so blessed to be eating food made by Celty’s own hand – even though Shizuo was also part of it but he’ll pretend his portion is only Celty – and that he’s moved to tears and a large portion of black bean noodles that didn’t taste all that bad later, Shizuo lets himself fall onto the couch next to Izaya.

“Shizu-chan made me dinner,” Izaya says. “How very _domestic_ of you.”

“Yeah, not like you planned for it or anything.”

“Of course not. Me? Planning things? I’m nothing but spontaneous, Shizu-chan.”

Shizuo snorts. “Sure you are.”

Izaya shifts closer, his right arm pressed to Shizuo’s left and leans his head on Shizuo’s shoulder. When he speaks, his voice is low. “Do you think the mistletoe is still there?”

“Who cares if it is?”

“Don’t you think it’ll be _fun_ to play with mistletoe in November?”

“Not particularly.”

“Do you think Shinra and Celty fuck on the couch we’re sitting on?”

“What the _fuck_.” Shizuo shoves sideways, throwing Izaya a disgusted look. Izaya seems to have realized what exactly he’s said because now he looks sickened as well. “Why would you even _say_ that, it’s _gross_.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but you two are also pretty gross!” Shinra calls from the table, where he’s sitting with Celty. Shizuo jumps, hoping they didn’t hear what Izaya just said, but it doesn’t look like it. Still, it’s hard to fight the embarrassment that’s rushing to his face and Izaya laughs next to him.

“We should leave, _right_ , Shizu-chan?”

“Please do!”

“You’re unbelievable,” Shizuo says as Izaya pulls him up off the couch. He’s sort of glad – he doesn’t really want to sit on that couch anymore, now that he has a very unwelcome mental image attached to it. He promises to make Izaya pay for that one.

“Yes, yes,” Izaya says, pushing him towards the door. Shizuo calls out a _goodbye_ that’s met with a _good riddance!_ from Shinra, soon followed by a loud whine as Celty probably hits him for being rude, and Izaya all but drags him out the door.

The air outside is _cold_. It _is_ November after all, so that’s no surprise, but it also means that Izaya gets an excuse to grab Shizuo’s hands and decide he’s not going all the way back home because it’s too cold and Shizuo’s nice, warm apartment is so near.

“My heater is broken,” Shizuo says but Izaya waves that off.

“Shizu-chan is my heater.”

“What the fuck.”

“Don’t you know your body temperature is always higher than normal? That’s good enough for me.”

“Go home, Izaya.”

Izaya grins up at him, letting his hand go to slip his own inside Shizuo’s jacket and wrap them around his stomach. It’s a hug, in every way, but Shizuo knows if he ever called it that, Izaya would say it’s just to warm himself up. Even if that’s true, it’s still a hug. And Shizuo _likes_ the feeling. “I _am_ going home, Shizu-chan.”

Despite the cold, Shizuo’s chest feels warm.

He scowls in some form of defense. “Take your arms out,” he says, trying to deflect from _that_ topic. It’s weird for Izaya to say things like that, and even weirder that Shizuo isn’t allowed to touch on it even when Izaya is the one who brings it up.

“No,” Izaya says. “It’s cold and you’re warm.”

“Tough shit, flea.” He pushes Izaya off and starts walking home, making sure to take very long strides to leave Izaya behind. Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t work. Izaya’s a pest, and also a very fast one, and the streets of Ikebukuro are never quite empty, so it doesn’t take very long for Izaya to catch up to him.

“If I said my lips were cold, what would you do?”

“Shove your face into the incinerator.”

“…so romantic.”

 

* * *

 

 

It’s still cold inside Shizuo’s apartment because as he’d said before, the heater is broken. So naturally, Izaya takes to bundling himself up in the blankets that are a bit too thin for winter weather because Shizuo hasn’t gotten around to taking out the thicker ones, and curling up as close to Shizuo as possible.

“You’re so fucking _clingy_ ,” Shizuo tells him, but wraps his arms around him anyway.

“It’s _cold_.” Is Izaya’s retort. Which is true, but it’s also not the full truth and they both know it. Shizuo sighs to himself, shifting so he’s the one with his face buried in Izaya’s chest instead of the other way around.

“You’re such a fuckin’ handful,” he murmurs against the fabric there. Izaya jerks – probably because it’s ticklish, but he doesn’t push Shizuo away so he only moves to press a kiss there, letting the hand that’s thrown over Izaya’s stomach travel down to his legs, rubbing over the pants Izaya has borrowed from him to create heat from friction. “Why do I like you so much.”

Izaya laughs. “You like me?”

“I fuckin’ _hate_ you.”

“Glad the feeling is mutual.”

Shizuo closes his eyes. He feels warm, and is pretty sure it has nothing to do with the body heat or the blankets. Izaya’s stolen most of both, anyway, but Shizuo’s skin is prickling with something that feels suspiciously like _fondness_. Maybe a few months, few weeks, few days ago he’d have fought the feeling, thinking to himself _wow, that’s disgusting_ , but this isn’t a few months, weeks, days ago. This is _now_ , and Shizuo finds himself thinking back to his conversation with Tom-san.

“Are we dating?” He murmurs. There is silence for a minute, two, three. The heater is broken, so there’s no buzz to fill it. The cars rushing on the road down below only do so much. It drags on so long and so loud Shizuo thinks he might end up regretting the question. Izaya doesn’t like being pushed into things, so he’s never tried to do it.

 _I involuntarily smile at my phone when I text you_ , he thinks.

Izaya takes a deep breath and Shizuo prepares himself for a rejection. It’s fine, really, he tells himself. He’d never expected Izaya to feel the way he does. If he doesn’t want to call it _dating_ , that’s fine, because a label doesn’t really mean anything; but then Izaya’s hand brushes through his hair and he speaks: “I suppose so.”

Shizuo sighs heavily. Some mix of relief and surprise and something so close to happiness it might as well be just that, he doesn’t know how to name. He sits up, pulling at Izaya’s arm to force him up as well, pretending not to hear the loud complaints.

Izaya freezes when Shizuo hugs him.

 _With_ that label.

“What are you doing,” he says.

“Hugging you.”

“It’s the middle of the night, Shizu-chan, let me sleep.”

“It’s not that late, shut up.” Shizuo squeezes tighter, making sure to keep a check on how much strength he puts into it. “I’d kiss you,” he adds in a softer voice. “But we have a bet.”

Izaya scoffs. “You’re so sentimental,” he says but his head shifts to rest better on Shizuo’s shoulder. It really isn’t that late, and they’re sitting up, but it’s so comfortable and warm, Shizuo thinks he might just fall asleep right here like this. He pulls them both back onto the bed so they’re lying face-to-face on the pillow.

Izaya blinks at him, and even in the moonlight, the pink on his cheeks is visible. Shizuo grins and presses his forehead to Izaya’s. “Good night, you fucking flea.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello! i'm so sorry for the late update, i got held up by life. aaaaaaand so here it goes! as usual, they're a pair of idiots. shout out to that one person who guessed the winner by like the second chapter or something. i almost changed the end just because of that but then i really wanted it to end this way so i kept it. it's very cheesy i admit, i apologize. not very ic of them but oh well! it was fun.
> 
> thank you so much to everyone who read and commented and left kudos, you guys mean the world to me! i was surprised at how many people liked this since it was more of a test-run fic than anything else, all the feedback i got is very special to me, and hopefully you'll like my future works as well! 
> 
> and also, shout out to me for finally having one completed, multi-chapter fic on ao3 lol

**oo6.**

 

“Good _morning_ , Shizu-chan!” Izaya’s voice pierces through his dreams and suddenly there is a whole lot of water on his face that leaves Shizuo spluttering and coughing as he wakes up with a start. “It’s late and you have to go to work!”

“What the _fuck_ are you doing?”

“Waking you up, of course! You don’t want to be fired for tardiness, do you?”

Shizuo scowls, wiping the water off his face to properly look at Izaya – he’s standing next to the bed in the same clothes he’d slept in, except now he’s also stolen one of Shizuo’s sweaters because it’s cold. He has a mug in his hand, which Shizuo glares daggers at for being the source of the water that had so rudely awakened him, even though the mug itself is innocent and it’s entirely the person holding it who is at fault.

He glances at the alarm clock on the nightstand. “It’s not late at all, what the fuck?”

Izaya blinks innocently. “But it _will_ be late if you keep sleeping!”

“Fuck you,” Shizuo says. He moves to snatch back the blankets that had been pulled off him but Izaya grabs onto the other end so when Shizuo pulls, Izaya comes tumbling on top of him from the force, making Shizuo fall flat on his back against the bed.

“That’s mean, Shizu-chan,” Izaya says, lifting his head from Shizuo’s chest to look him in the eye. He shifts to make himself more comfortable on his newfound position on top of Shizuo’s body, pulling the blankets over them so it’s warm.  “That’s not any way to treat your _boyfriend_.”

Shizuo blinks at him.

Right. There was that.

They were now officially _dating_. After almost a whole damn year of leaving that relationship unidentified. It makes Shizuo’s stomach flutter.

“It’s just you,” he grumbles and pushes Izaya off, but there is an undisguisable smile pulling at his lips and he doesn’t bother hiding it. “If it’s so late, why aren’t _you_ getting ready? You’re going to miss the train.”

“I was thinking,” Izaya’s hands grab at Shizuo’s shirt, making him fall back onto the bed and he blinks up in surprise as Izaya rolls over on top of him again. “I could just stay here all day.”

“Why the fuck would you do that.”

“Benefits of being self-employed and all.” Izaya smirks. “You can go to work, I’ll wait for you.”

“If you think I’m leaving you alone in my house, you’re wrong. Get the fuck out.”

Izaya pouts at him, batting his eyelashes in this stupid way that makes Shizuo cringe throughout. “How could you be so mean to your boyfriend?”

“I regret everything about you,” Shizuo informs him and pushes him off again, this time hard enough that Izaya falls off the side of the bed and Shizuo laughs at the sight of him lying on the floor, scowling.

He gets out of bed and ignores the hand Izaya stretches out as a demand to be pulled to his feet, stepping over Izaya’s legs to head towards the bedroom door.

“I guess I should go and get ready,” he says. “Wouldn’t want to ruin your effort to help me be punctual.”

“Fuck you, Shizu-chan,” Izaya replies from the floor and Shizuo laughs his way to the bathroom.

 

* * *

 

 

Breakfast is barely breakfast, considering he’d stepped out of the bathroom to a cloud of smoke in the living room and rushed to the kitchen to find Izaya sitting at the table with two perfectly fried eggs in front of him while the frying pan on the stove blazed in the background.

“What the fuck did you do to my kitchen?!” He yelled, and Izaya had responded with a careless “It’s not that bad, it’s just a bit of smoke, Shizu-chan” at which point Shizuo thought he would be better off throwing Izaya out the window once and for all. Boyfriend or no boyfriend.

The eggs, at the very least, taste good, although the toast that comes with it is burnt.

Izaya ignores the latter half of this when he voices it, choosing to gloat about how he’s such a good cook and pulls his legs up on the chair to sit cross legged. The cup of coffee in front of him is so black it looks like the burnt side of Shizuo’s toast.

“Are you really planning on staying here all day?” Shizuo asks warily. “What are you even going to _do_?”

“Write notes to your neighbours and apologize for the upcoming nighttime disturbances – “

“Fuck you, you’re not talking to my neighbours. They already hate me enough.”

Izaya shoots a grin at him, taking a sip of his coffee and sticking a leg out under the table to rest his foot on Shizuo’s thigh. “Then I guess I’ll just hang around and wait for you to come back.”

The idea of Izaya just _waiting_ for him is so laughable, Shizuo actually does it out loud. He ignores the dirty look Izaya gives him and lets his hand slide under the table to tickle at the soles of Izaya’s feet, making him yelp and hastily pull his foot back.

“You really think I’m going to trust you with my house?”

“You _should_ ,” Izaya tells him. “Because I’m your _boyfriend_.”

“Stop using the word ‘boyfriend’ to get your way, it’s not going to stop me from kicking your ass when you deserve it, which is all the time.”

Izaya rolls his eyes. “In any case, I’ve been alone in your house many times before, and do you see any damage?”

“There’s the hole in the wall next to my bed from that time you were sleeping there when I got home and I punched it, the broken shelf in the living room from when you pissed me off and I threw a chair at you – “

“None of those are _my_ fault!”

“ – you killed my favorite pillow by making me rip it apart in anger – “

“Shizu-chan,” Izaya says and before Shizuo can do anything about it, leans over the table to press his lips to Shizuo’s.

 _We have a bet_ , Shizuo remembers.

 _But fuck that_ , is the natural addition.

It takes a second for him to realize it’s not Izaya’s lips against Shizuo’s – it might as well be, because Izaya’s face is only centimeters away and Shizuo can see the clearly the way the sun shining in through the window reflects off Izaya’s eyes and make them look stunning. He can feel Izaya’s breath on his face.

Izaya’s palm is covering Shizuo’s mouth, effectively shutting him up, but he’s too shocked by the fact that Izaya’s mouth is against the other side to really say anything anyway.

 _Fuck the bet_ , he thinks to himself, and brings his hand up to push at the back of Izaya’s neck. The pressure at his lips gets heavier and it almost hurts a little bit, but he closes his eyes and lets himself kiss the fingers keeping him silent.

Izaya moves first.

It’s the loss of balance that makes it happen – his leg slipping off the chair he’s using to prop himself up so he’s forced to push himself back up so he doesn’t fall. His face is red and he looks frazzled and pleased with himself.

Shizuo thinks he probably looks more or less the same, albeit without the smug expression. There might be more desperation on his face than anything else.

“I’m going to work,” he says and tosses the burnt toast at Izaya’s head.

The laughter follows him out the kitchen.

 

* * *

 

 

After almost a week of keeping his mouth to himself, it’s not really surprising that the only thing he can think of is Izaya. It’s _annoying_ , yes, but it’s understandable, considering how much of the time they spend together is used for kissing. Shizuo frowns to himself, walking along the streets of Ikebukuro that is suddenly so much more peaceful without the use of heavy objects as projectiles.

It’s still an odd feeling knowing Izaya is in the city like he’d always just _known_ and still feel no anger.

Well, he still feels anger, but it’s less of a _fuck you_ than a _let me do it for you_ kind of anger.

Today, though, he just feels ridiculous.

There’s a fluttering feeling in his stomach – a weird sense of jittery anticipation that’s not quite the same as the way he used to feel back when they’d first started messing around. He wants to see Izaya, he knows that.

He might almost be _eager_ to see Izaya, and the idea is strangely not revolting enough for him to deny it outright before he’s even properly thought it.

Shizuo sighs and shoves his hands in his pockets. It’s not even noon yet, but he already wants to go home.

He wonders what Izaya is doing. Probably still lying in bed in Shizuo’s clothes and saying stupid shit on one of his chatrooms. Maybe he’s wandering around now that it’s a bit warmer and he doesn’t _have_ to stay bundled up in blankets, although there’s not really much to do there. The books Shizuo has on his shelf comprise mostly of manga and the few novels there are the type Izaya would laugh at, although Shizuo knows he’s seen one of them on Izaya’s own shelf as well.

Maybe he’s decided this whole dating thing isn’t for him and has already fled the country, never to be seen again. Shizuo wouldn’t put it past him.

Some part of him thinks leaving him alone in his apartment was a bad idea, but another part of him whispers the word _boyfriend_ in a voice that sounds suspiciously like Izaya’s and he has to fight the smile that’s starting to pull at his lips, and shakes his head when Tom-san asks him why he looks so happy.

 

* * *

 

 

“Do you have somewhere to be?” Tom-san asks him as they step out of the apartment complex where one of their debtors lives. Shizuo looks at him in confusion. “You seem like you’re in a hurry today.”

“I’m not.” The words come out a bit funny – not noticeable to anyone but himself, of course, since he’s the only one who realizes that they feel wrong because they _are_ wrong. He wonders if he’s been this transparent all day.

“We only have two more houses to go to today, and then we head back to the office, so you can ask them if you can leave early.” Tom-san smiles and pats his arm. “Is it something important?”

Shizuo frowns. The image of Izaya welcoming him home with a cheeky smile and an almost-kiss because he’s an asshole enters his mind in full technicolor, as if it’s something he’s thought about in a lot of detail before, which he _hasn’t_ – at least not consciously – and he makes a face.

“It’s not important at all,” he says. “It’s fine.”

It’s a _ridiculous_ thought. Izaya would never be the loving boyfriend waiting for him at home, welcoming him back after a long day of work.

But Izaya is technically _waiting_.

For him.

At home.

The thought makes Shizuo’s stomach flutter.

 

* * *

 

 

He manages to make it through the day without taking up on Tom-san’s offer, staying until it’s time for him to clock out even though he’d considered and reconsidered and re-reconsidered the option of claiming he has something ‘important’ to do and leaving early. His willpower isn’t exactly something he prides himself on so of course, this is an achievement.

And of course, if he had come home earlier than he needed to, Izaya would jump to the obvious conclusion and then never leave him alone.

Just to make sure he doesn’t have to live through that, even though Izaya would have been right, he takes the long route home, making sure he goes through the streets he knows would be crowded at this time in the evening, dragging his feet to go extra slow.

When he gets close enough to see the apartment building, he lights up a cigarette and decides he isn’t going to step inside unless he’s done smoking it.

 _Fighting one addiction with another_ , he thinks to himself and almost laughs at the irony, and then immediately shoves the thought away because Izaya is not an _addiction._

Izaya greets him by throwing a pillow at his face from where he’s sitting bundled up in blankets on the sofa, with all three of Shizuo’s mugs on the table in front of him, and an empty ramen cup that had been the last one in the cabinets.

“You’re finally home,” he says, looking up from the TV with a grin that is too cheeky to be welcoming. “I ate all your ramen.”

“I saw,” Shizuo says, throwing a pointed look at the empty cup and frowns at the TV. “Why the fuck are you watching kindergartener’s cartoons?”

“They’re entertaining,” Izaya says, but turns the TV off and sticks a hand out from under the blanket to pat the spot on the sofa next to him. “Sit here.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean _why_?” Shizuo is already expecting the words that follow before they leave Izaya’s mouth. “I’m your _boyfriend_.”

“Stop that,” he grumbles in response, but hangs his coat up on the hook next to the door and joins Izaya on the couch. The blanket is too small for two people, so Izaya decides Shizuo doesn’t need any, resulting in a fight that lasts approximately two seconds in which Shizuo grabs one end and pulls with no effort. Izaya topples to the floor from the force and Shizuo laughs at him.

“You’re a terrible person,” Izaya tells him, standing up. “I’m breaking up with you.”

“Sure.” Shizuo laughs. He reaches out for Izaya’s hand, which is warm from being indoors all day, and pulls him back onto the couch. “Here, take it if you want it so badly. I’ll get another one.”

“This is fine, isn’t it?” Izaya takes the blanket from him, throwing it over Shizuo’s shoulders and shifting so he’s close enough for the other end to reach around him as well – and also close enough that if someone were to push either of them just a bit from behind, the could end up kissing. Shizuo blinks at the proximity.

This is probably some form of sabotage, he thinks to himself, even as he watches Izaya settling into a comfortable position, and yet it’s so ridiculously _domestic_ he doesn’t know what to do about it.

Sure, they’re dating now, but _cuddling_ is not something he could ever have expected from Izaya.

The part of him that despises the bet screams at him: _this is the best time to kiss!_

He’s cold and Izaya is warm, and they’re close enough that if Shizuo wanted to, all he has to do is lean in.

He very pointedly leans backwards.

Izaya doesn’t seem to notice, even though his end of the blanket slides off his shoulder at the movement. He’s too busy flicking through the channels, apparently looking for something to watch.

“Haven’t you been watching TV all day?” Shizuo asks. “You’re such a slacker.”

“I don’t like being lectured by _you_ about my lifestyle, thank you,” Izaya says, without looking at him. “And anyway, it’s my day off. Do you want to watch this movie?”

Shizuo peers at the screen, where a white couple is lying in a field of snow. It makes Shizuo feel colder.

“There’s nothing else good on,” Izaya says, settling back again. “So let’s just watch this.”

“It’s in English.”

“So?”

“You know I suck at fucking English.”

“Mm, well at least you don’t suck at fucking _me_ – “

“You know what I meant!”

Izaya huffs a laugh, turning his head to smirk up at Shizuo, who scowls down at him.

“Shizu-chan,” he says. “It doesn’t matter. We’re just watching a movie because that’s what people do on dates.”

Shizuo blinks. “This is a date?”

“Do you not want it to be? I guess I’ll have to find another boyfriend then – “

“Shut the fuck up. Is this a date?”

Izaya sighs. “Yes, Shizu-chan. It’s a date. Our first date. We can hardly go out in public and announce we’re dating, so it’ll have to be like this.”

Shizuo opens his mouth to refute that, just because it’s Izaya and it’s reflex for him to disagree with anything Izaya says, but the idea of them holding hands in public still isn’t a very appealing one, so he scowls in response instead and takes the seat next to Izaya on the couch.

“See,” Izaya says, moving closer and leaning his head on Shizuo’s shoulder. His hand finds Shizuo’s under the blanket. “You don’t have to fight me about everything.”

“You start it every time,” Shizuo grumbles, but Izaya’s thumb is rubbing circles against his palm, making it tickle just the slightest bit. He keeps his eyes on the screen, trying not to be hyperaware of Izaya’s presence all around him – the smell of his hair, the fingers in his own, the fact that Izaya is so much warmer than he is right now from having stayed home all day.

He’s tired from working all day and the movie – that he can’t even _understand_ – is making him drowsy.

 _This is good atmosphere for making out_.

Izaya laughs. “You think so?”

Shizuo blinks at him. He hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but it’s not like it’s not true. Why aren’t they making out already? They’re close enough as it is. Izaya is still leaning against his shoulder, so Shizuo turns his head to breathe in the way his hair smells – _that’s my shampoo,_ his mind says – and suddenly he’s too tired to even move.

“We can do that if you like,” Izaya is saying, but Shizuo isn’t really listening anymore.

 

**oo7.**

 

He wakes up on his back, with Izaya lying on top of him.

The TV is still on, although the sound has been muted, making Shizuo squint against the light. It’s stupidly warm for his apartment, considering it’s built high and his heater is broken.

He blinks up at the ceiling, belatedly realizing he’s on the couch in the living room and not in bed. The last thing he remembers is watching an English movie as part of their _date_. They must have fallen asleep here.

He reaches out for the phone on the table with one hand, only realizing it’s Izaya’s once he picks it up. It doesn’t matter though, he just wants to check the time. He presses the button on the side, making the screen light up.

It’s just a little past five, but that isn’t what his attention is drawn to. It’s the picture set as the wallpaper – an image from what he assumes is a few months earlier, when they’d first started their _business_ with each other. Shizuo remembers the situation clearly – him, sitting on Izaya’s sofa while Izaya sat at his desk. They’d been discussing their _terms_ , that day.

Izaya had clapped his hands when they’d come to an agreement – not really _come_ to it as much as forced the other to agree, but they mostly had the same terms to begin with – and snapped a photo to ‘commemorate the moment’. He has his stupid grin on his face, his fingers held up in a peace sign. Shizuo in the background looks grumpy.

Shizuo remembers the terms too: _No telling, no staying over, no feelings_.

He laughs quietly at that, setting the phone aside. They’d broken that first rule the first day.

The second, within a week.

The third – Shizuo doesn’t know. He’d been sure at the very least he could keep that one, but then things never really go the way he plans them to.

“Shizu-chan?” Izaya’s voice cuts through his thoughts.

“You’re awake,” Shizuo says. Izaya pushes himself up, rubbing his eyes and Shizuo follows, grabbing the ends of the blanket to wrap it around them, protecting them from the early morning chill.

Izaya shifts closer to make it easier, and when he leans up to press a kiss against Shizuo’s lips, Shizuo meets him halfway.

There’s a funny feeling in his stomach, as if he’s achieved something he’s been trying to get for a while, but he ignores it in favor of bringing a hand up to hold Izaya’s face while he kisses him.

He wonders why it feels like he hasn’t done it in a while.

Izaya pulls back first, but realization has already hit him.

“You _lose_ ,” Izaya yells. “You _lose_ , Shizu-chan!”

“ _No_ ,” he says, “ _You_ were going to kiss me first!”

“Don’t make excuses, Shizu-chan,” Izaya says, grinning triumphantly. “We both knew from the start that you were going to lose.”

“I did _not_ lose, you fucking flea,” Shizuo growls, grabbing Izaya by the collar. “It was a _draw_.”

“Ridiculous. I wasn’t even fully awake, you think my first waking thought is going to be to kiss you?”

“You want me to kill you?”

“You wouldn’t kill your own _boyf –“_

 _“_ I’m going to _kill_ you,” Shizuo says and grabs Izaya’s legs, dragging him across the couch and pushing him down before his hands find Izaya’s sides and Izaya starts screaming.

“This is _cruel_ , _you absolute beast, let me go!”_

“Admit you lost.”

“I didn’t lose, _stop – “_

“Say you lost or I’ll tickle you forever.”

“ _Stop it!”_ Izaya kicks out, pushing Shizuo backwards, and in the two seconds Shizuo’s hands are off him, he gets tangled up in the blankets in his hurry to get away, tripping over his own feet and falling backwards into Shizuo’s lap.

“You tried, huh,” Shizuo says, but doesn’t reach out to tickle Izaya again. He doesn’t really care anymore, at this point. His lips are still tingling from kissing Izaya after god knows how long, and he wants to get back to that.

He pushes Izaya back up, turning him around and pushing him back down onto the couch, leaning over him as his lips find Izaya’s again,

“Wait, Shizu-chan,” Izaya says.

“What?”

“First brush your teeth.”

 

* * *

 

 

“We didn’t even last a week,” Izaya muses later, when they’ve both brushed their teeth and showered – with Izaya complaining about how they hadn’t done so before sleeping last night – and relocated to the bedroom where there is more space. It’s colder now, after having showered and the bed having been unslept in all night. “Today should have been the seventh day, but _somebody_ got too overwhelmed.”

“Shut up,” Shizuo says. “I forgot, and so did you.”

“Hmm,” Izaya hums, bringing a hand up to trace the shape of Shizuo’s lips with one finger. “I didn’t forget.”

“So you lose.”

“I _didn’t_ lose, _you’re_ the one who kissed me.”

Shizuo bites on the finger in response, and then when Izaya yells, presses a kiss to the tip by means of apology.

“Fine,” he says. “I lose. What do you want?”

Izaya looks at him in surprise. “What I want?”

“We had a deal, remember,” Shizuo reminds him. “Do whatever the other person wants. So what do you want?”

“Ah,” Izaya’s eyes twinkle. He pulls his hand away from Shizuo’s, and grabs the front of his shirt instead to drag himself closer. “For now, I want a week’s worth of kisses.”

Shizuo laughs and leans in.

After all, a deal’s a deal.

**Author's Note:**

> candylit.tumblr.com


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